


What becomes of the broken hearted

by norman_motherfucking_rockwell



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Enjolras Was A Charming Young Man Who Was Capable Of Being Terrible, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love at First Sight, M/M, R really needs a hug, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26222455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norman_motherfucking_rockwell/pseuds/norman_motherfucking_rockwell
Summary: Grantaire believed that you didn't need other people to drive away your loneliness. You just needed a way to talk to it.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	What becomes of the broken hearted

Myths and legends are talked of a lot in the world; people confer about minotaurs and talk of Artemis, but to Grantaire, the biggest myth of all was: what becomes of the brokenhearted and why do they make the most beautiful pain? What happens once one has their heart ripped from their own body in a flurry of hurt and guts and lies and secrets, in a disastrous and tragic parody of fireworks? But also what kind of pain must one endure to truly make a masterpiece.

The need to know was powered by his paint-stained fingers and his need for something more. To find beauty in tragedy, to bend that mythological pain to his will and create something magnificent from it. 

As a young man brought up in a small town in a working-class house, he went to a regular school with typical kids and had a normal family. He was not ungrateful for the cards he had been dealt, Grantaire had what he needed, but the normality of it all was grating and suffocating him all the same. The need to explore outwards and find tragedy and turn it into beauty and colour was so exceedingly pressing in a life filled with lukewarm grey tones and empty smiles that eventually, the invisible string living within snapped. 

It was mid-august when a bus was boarded by a 17-year-old Sebastian Grantaire who had decided that for his new life committed to hedonism and heartache, he would simply go by Grantaire. To be remembered for his art, he would simply be known as R; he had decided. 

He had sat down at the window seat and watched the trees roll by as the august heat resonated throughout the bus and infected all of its passengers with sleepy eyes and tired limbs. Headphones resting in each ear, Jackson Browne's slow sounds echoed on either side of his head.

I've been out walking  
I don't do too much talking these days  
These days  
These days I seem to think a lot  
About the things that I forgot to do  
And all the times I had  
A chance to

Despite the cruel twist of foreshadowing, he was not yet aware of, it felt as if he had finally become the main character of his own life. It was a turning point, a moment he would never forget and in his current drunken hazes (for which there were many) would always remember.

To all those who knew him as his most recent self, the humble and optimistic beginning was far from the cynic who had happily stepped into a secondary character's role. The young and naive Grantaire who had been fascinated by life and its simple offerings was a ghost to the sad sack of shit that sat at the back of cafe Musain. This Grantaire resented his old self and looked back with a sour taste in his mouth. In his own opinion, the boy who had openly sought heartache was a fool who should have stayed in ignorance and boredom, as nothing could combat the pain, excruciating emptiness, that he felt now. 

In the 6 years since he had gotten on that bus, out of the town with the friendly people who waved at each other as they passed on the pavements, he began committing heavily to this new character, any semblance of his old self was buried at the bottom of a bottle. Cynicism had taken over like a disease; it had reached each limb in his body and attacked his heart full-on, and he was content to live with it.

However, the paint-stained fingers had remained the same, the messy flat he inhabited was filled with stains and damp spots and holes in the wall, but in the beginning, to Grantaire, it was heaven. A place he could be himself, and in the years passed that he had lived there, it still charmed him. When the rain would run down the windows, he would open them and sit on the window cill with a cigarette burning between his fingers, all while Lou Reed was wailing in the background through his dusty old record player. Despite the pessimism and disenchantment that he felt followed him around like a bad smell, the afternoon summer rain felt like being wrapped in a hug by your oldest friend. 

He, of course, had tried to fall in love many times. It always started in beautiful rooms where he was the curly-haired, green-eyed artist who knew where to get a free meal from the best cooks in the city and could help you sneak through clubs' back entrances. He would claim love in light of spontaneity and believe he was living the life he was always meant to live. But as the seasons changed, his partner's feelings would grow sour, and Grantaire would grow bored. For his next self proclaimed great love, he'd tell the jokes his last lover had made and pretend they were his, and with the more 'love' he'd receive, the more alcohol he would drain and the more that he began to hate himself. 

The drinking began small, parties were endless for the character Grantaire had created for himself, the character everyone loved, who declared fits of passion for his nearest and dearest friends by reciting poetry and the old philosophers. The feeling of being loved grew all too addictive, as one would expect. Fair weathered friends would call on his impulses and ply him with vices, love was given out freely to the man who had decided he had been in it so many times he had nothing left to lose. 

But now... heartbreak was second nature to him, love was an illusion, and the world was never going to change, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. 

The feeling of just being tired weighed heavily on his shoulders as he thought of his so-called 'friends,' the users and abusers who believed that for life to be loved and lived fully, you needed a little help. Unfortunately, that little help came in white lines followed by white lies and endless bottles with names they couldn't pronounce, fake friends, and no room for loose change like Grantaire. He'd foreseen himself being edged out of each group he was in; he wasn't like them, super-rich kids, who were using him as a rebellion phase. Grantaire figured that he'd just be a story for them to tell at their work cocktail parties about their rebellious youth in a few years. The future corporate lawyers of the world and corrupt politicians who thought they were 'bohemian.' Nor was he like the naked hippies who stayed up all night and fucked through the day, or even the guys and girls in bands who each had powerful auras of formidable cool. He didn't fit in anywhere he just simply gravitated to wherever the boos were at. 

At the time, it seemed fine as he drifted from groups of friends onto the next, the reliance on alcohol growing more extreme as it became more insurance that he would be entertaining.  
But as the cycle continued itself in rapid succession, it had brought him here to this place of overthinking and over-analyzing. Head in hands, hair greasy, throat burning, and eyes red with unshed tears of frustration and anger at the world that he had tried so hard to love but instead had decided to spit him out. Lies had become futile long ago; he no longer held the belief that telling yourself a lie was the most effective way to deal with things you had no control over. Weeks back, he had started listening to old playlists and mixtapes from ex-girlfriends and boyfriends, overthinking every word of every lyric, asking if it was a sign things were going wrong. Then again, he was the one that cared too hard, not them.  
He would stare at his cracked phone screen every rare time he was sober and would attempt to gather up the courage to turn the constant reminders of loneliness into nothing more than a pitiful dream, hoping for one second someone would return his love. 

He started going for coffee four times a week to the cafe Musain where he'd sit at his usual place at a small table by the window facing the wall of the building opposite the alley, order an Irish coffee and sit in silence. The walls were covered in books, and the floor was covered by tables with mismatched chairs and sofas surrounding the hardwood floor. He would bring his sketchbook, never stop drawing, leave little comics, and thank you notes with his tip, and watch the baristas smile as he walked away. 

Talking down on himself in every possible way was the only real semblance of routine, staring into his bathroom mirror, thinking, "my life is shit because I deserve it, right?". He'd managed to maintain a few friends after drifting from group to group but he'd ignore them for weeks, despite them being the only sense of consistency left in his life.  
"If they really wanted to see you, they'd come." is another thing he'd tell himself in the mirror, but he knew they wouldn't, but who cares? They were as fair-weathered as the rest of them, and he was so far gone that he had well truly become a secondary character in his own motion picture, for the third time. Taking a backseat in the world around him and drowning every one of his fears in old bottled rum, he learned to love the taste of it dripping down the back of his throat, found comfort in it, and secretly referred to it as 'bottled love.' 

Grantaire believed that you didn't need other people to drive away your loneliness. You just needed a way to talk to it.

On the midnight streets of Paris, feeling dejected and so drunk on disappointment and mediocrity (and rum), he had stumbled onto the little side street and into the regular old cafe with the neon-lit sign that said 'cafe Musain, open 24 hours'. Sketchbook out in front of him and shaking hands finally subdued into numbness, he took a look around the room, and at that moment, he felt like the world had stopped moving altogether.

The world was suddenly still, the back seat he had taken to the world around him was brought forward to the front, but not slowly and gently that he had so often fantasized about when he was younger, but pushed passionately and violently. 

The sight before him was one that belonged to a piece of art created for another world, a less ugly and more forgiving world that held banquets for the gods and celebrated freedom and love. An otherworldly creature stood before Grantaire; the sound was muted. All he could hear was the sound of his own heart beating faster and faster. Nothing was more beautiful in his eyes than the guy stood up on his table, commanding the attention of all 5 customers of the otherwise empty cafe, two of which were assumedly his friends. As Grantaire forced himself to start listening to who could only be the god Apollo come to visit earth, he heard him talking of revolution and justice for all, and he scoffed at such naivety. 

But what Grantaire thought was naivety was nowhere near the level of intensity those grey eyes held as he was stared down by the vengeful god, from his pedestal made of the cheap plastic and wood in which the tables were made from. A fire was lit inside his heart, a fire that burned so bright that it meant there was no room for anything else. As he was being stared down by Apollo, Grantaire decidedly collected his jaw from the floor and began talking, which was where the real problem started.

"Look, I'm sorry, but do you seriously believe in a single word you're saying right now. Nothing changes, it never does, and those who believe it will, are kidding themselves. Humans are spoiled and evil creatures, we're all inherently shit, and all the crap that comes our way is probably some divine way of the universe punishing us for some reason or other, and everyone has just made peace with that. So, because everyone has universally agreed that things are shit, nothing will ever get better because ignorance feels a lot warmer than the harsh cold ice bucket challenge of reality. You can try to 'raise awareness,' but everyone is already aware, it's just no one wants to do anything about it."

As he ranted, the golden-haired creature's posture stood before him became more relaxed as if he already knew he had won whatever argument was about to take place. 

"Everything you just said was complete and utter bullshit, and I don't think that you believe a word of what you just said." As he spoke, it seemed like a fire was dancing in his eyes.  
"The world is finally waking up; just look around; it's not difficult. The way you just talked about the world makes you just seem like some cynical old man who's decided he's too decrepit to fight for what's right as he thinks he'll just die soon anyway. But I have to say, that is the most ridiculous outlook on life I've ever heard. The revolution is coming... and acting like some pessimistic ass makes you complicit in the things we're fighting against. Being a cynic isn't trendy." 

As he carried on, his eyes blazed brighter and brighter, and the lust for life that had been so dormant within Grantaire had finally been lit at long last. The passion and excitement that had been hibernating for so long were making his hands shake, as the need to paint this avenging angel onto the side of a building took over. 

At this moment, a part of the old Grantaire had returned, the younger, more curious version of himself that had been hiding this whole time, the urge to love and be loved was so strong he stood up from his chair and walked over to the table with the young god stood on it and offered out his hand. 

"Grantaire," he said as he locked eyes with the stranger with his arm outstretched to help him down. The young man was silenced by his action and took Grantaire's hand and stepped down off the table. The rush from holding the beautiful stranger's hand, feeling his skin against his own, felt like he'd been set on fire by a revolutionary fervor's flame. 

"Enjolras." Was the blond god's response. From looking in his eyes and back at their still joined hands, Grantaire knew that at this moment, he would probably die for this man.

**Author's Note:**

> How to never stop being sad - dandelion hands
> 
> I basically stole that whole song because it gives off massive Grantaire vibes oof, anyway was thinking about maybe doing a second chapter, I've got some ideas, so just let me know if that's anything anyone wants. 
> 
> <3


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